In preparing for my first Ironman last year, I really fell in love with cycling... which is a good thing since I spent 10-15 hours on the bike each week. With some encouragement from my cycling mentor Brad, I decided to dedicate a good amount of my spring to road cycling. It's a completely different riding style than you experience in long-course triathlon and adds a lot of fun to my training.
Anyway, I competed in the first race of the Central Park Spring Series a few weeks back. The morning--5am morning--was brutally cold with sleet. Considering that it was my first road race and tight pack effort is definitely not my bread-and-butter riding, I really considering calling it off. I showed up to registration, asked Brad whether he thought it was safe enough to race and he basically roped me into committing.
We did a warm-up lap, talked strategy and then lined up at the start line.
The field was small--15 to 20 riders--which I was happy to see given the conditions.
The race covered about 12.5 miles (two loops of Central Park).
Some notes
Lap 1:
- Worked way too hard on first pass at Harlem Hill. After pushing up the hill, I realized that I had dropped the peloton... a little early for that!
- Stayed in front all of the way through "shit alley" (named for all of the horse excrement from the Central Park carriages). Being up front was definitely more work but kept me feeling safe.
- Pushed up Cat's Paw Hill way too early and got smoked through it. Was in last place going over the hill and had to work to catch the peloton after getting through the hill.
Lap 2:
- Took it easy on the east side to recover from my effort to catch the peloton.
- Did some work towards top of Park.
- Led the group down the hill and into Harlem Hill. This time I worked less hard on Harlem Hill.
- Led through fast portion on west side. Drifted to back of pack through "shit alley."
- The race got a little sketchy as the pace picked up and I nearly bit it on a pylon.
- Worked back to near the front (on the side) for final hit at Cat's Paw. Stayed in saddle for a while and used that to pop out and sprint to the end.
- Finished with pack.
All in all, the race was very cool and pretty safe. I worked way too hard but I didn't mind pulling for people since it was my first race.
And, after finishing, I took a look at my bike. Front and rear derailleurs were frozen (i.e. I couldn't shift gears) and there was a sheet of frozen sleet coating my bike frame... Rough!
Tomorrow, I'll be doing the third Spring Series race. Lots of learning ahead and I'm definitely excited.
